The Libido Virus: Pandemic

The bunker was surprisingly comfortable if a bit outdated in style. The Secretary of the Interior wondered how much had been spent yearly to keep the emergency shelter as comfortable as possible. Dozens of staff whirled around, slowly breathing life into the dormant facility. He could feel the hum of a very large generator somewhere beneath him. Most of his attention remained on a bowl of candies sitting on the coffee table. Hours before, a team of men with earpieces burst into a conference room and half walked, half carried him into an evacuation helicopter. They put him in a fighter jet in the middle of a fully mobilized war effort. After several hours, they landed in the mountains, and a new team of secret service immediately escorted him into a large, hidden silo where other government officials milled about in mild panic. The descent into the mountain took twenty minutes before they reached the door, a huge vault somehow carved into the mountain itself. A nuclear blast would barely scratch it even if it were on the surface. He doubted they would know if the world ended from this depth. Claustrophobia overcame a few of them as the door sealed itself. It felt very likely that none of them would ever see daylight again.

Yet, here on a coffee table in this bizarre place, someone had placed a fresh bowl of candies. The Secretary popped another in his mouth and resumed watching the flurry of activity.

"Mr. Secretary," a young woman said. Unlike the pristine surroundings, the human element showed signs of wear. Many had not slept in several days. "They're gathering in the conference room."

He stood and smoothed out his suit. "And where would that be?" he asked politely.

"Right this way, sir," she said.

He mused on the word, "sir." They all still looked at him with respect and reverence. He was an appointed official of a rapidly collapsing government. Those things were taking over the country, and they still thought the process mattered.

They entered a room filled with the rest of the Cabinet and a variety of staffers. People scrambled to find seats around the large conference table. The Secretary was directed to his. As everyone settled in, the President entered, and they all stood up.

"Please be seated," he said in a grave voice. "As this is the first time we've all been together since this began, I want to take a moment and thank everyone here for their hard work and professionalism in the past few hours. I know this has been a difficult time for all of us. While we are here and safe, we all have friends and family who are still out there in the world. But let us be clear, our first responsibility is to this nation as a whole, not to individuals. We face a grim reality before us. We have an invading army that is almost impervious to harm. For each of us that falls, another swells their ranks. We are surrounded on all sides, and we have no reinforcements coming. Before us is the monumental task of assembling a broken people into a fighting front against an army that seeks not our lives, but our very souls."

The men and women in the room shifted in their seats as the President took a long sip of water.

"Ronald, could you brief us on the current list of cities," he said, gesturing to the Homeland Security Secretary.

The normally robust man was ghastly pale. He stood up and moved over to a screen which flickered to life as one of his staffers fiddled with a computer. A map appeared showing cities and a variety of numbers. Ronald spoke in a hoarse voice, "Seven cities are completely gone. New York, Boston, Chicago, Memphis, Atlanta, Dallas, and Washington D.C. In addition to this, the outlying areas are overrun. We cannot safely quarantine any zone as it has spread too quickly. Cities in the West, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, any of these along the Western seaboard are also facing high levels of infection, but they were able to act on them quickly. They're more or less stable in their quarantine zones. We have lost contact with the CDC headquarters, but we have other facilities doing research as well, and we're hoping to re-establish comms with the Atlanta facility soon. Nationwide, we're looking at a 40% infection rate. That's not the real problem though."

"Well, what is?" said one of the other Cabinet members.

The Secretary of Interior spoke up, "Mike, the head of FEMA is here with us. Mike why don't you tell them what's going on."

One of the younger men, at forty-five, stood up and cleared his throat. "While the infection is the catalyst for what's going on, the real problem we're facing is a human element. Infrastructure has collapsed rapidly due to multiple key positions being compromised. The entire Eastern seaboard is without electricity. All commerce has stopped. Fresh water, short term food, everything that made life normal for people has been interrupted. Looting and crime rates have skyrocketed as people have started fighting for their survival. We're not seeing this outside of the major urban areas, but the mass exodus of people is causing problems in itself. Today's high in South Carolina was 97. People are leaving their homes and heading West with no shelter, no food, and no water. Behind them is a plague of Biblical proportions. While that threat is growing, the immediate damage is coming from the human population."

The President spoke up, "Thank you Mike. I am inclined to agree. Our current focus is to set up action plans where we can provide aid to refugees and also preserve the safety of those in the path of retreat. To this end, we're going to establish large shelter centers within the safe zones you see there on the map. We're going to dedicate our resources to these areas and then expand outward from there once we know how to better address the current threat."

The President nervously shifted some papers in front of him. "Now, as to that threat. You're all going to be receiving full briefing packets on what we know, but, um, during the evacuation we obtained some footage. We're calling them Queens since they appear to be of a hive mind, and we managed to get this video of one of them. I want everyone to see this so that we understand just what kind of abomination we are facing. I'm going to go to my office now and get to work. After all of you have seen this, you're all to go to your offices and start getting this country back together." Without another word, he stood up and left the room, a small entourage following in his wake.

The screen flickered, and a video appeared. The first thing they saw was a room not dissimilar to the one they were in. The camera adjusted to view a large window in the wall which looked into an operating room. A patient laid on a gurney, restrained in both leather straps and chains wrapped around the whole of the body. Indistinct voices could be heard in the background as doctors and nurses moved around inside the operating room. All of them were in full protective suits as they worked. The camera moved again, raising up so that it could look down into the room, and the audience was able to see the patient's face for the first time.

"My god. Is that the First Lady?" someone said.

They all recognized her, though she looked much different than the last time they had seen her. The grey in her hair had turned a vibrant red. The distinguished lines of age had smoothed away, and her eyes were no longer the cloudy shade of blue they had been her whole life, but a dark shade of green that seemed to glow with anticipation as she watched the doctors move around her.

Whoever was operating the video scrolled it forward by twenty minutes and let it play again. The doctors were preparing to administer some type of drug. Everyone watching saw the mistake. A nurse let her hand linger a moment too long near the First Lady's hand. In a startling display of speed and strength, the creature freed enough of her wrist to grab hold of the young woman and wrench off the her glove and half her sleeve.

The nurse collapsed instantly. One doctor made a break for the door. Another slammed a button, and the intercom clicked on, "CONTAINMENT BREACH! SEAL OFF OPERATION ONE." Metal blast doors rolled down, sealing inside the six staff with the First Lady. One doctor went to sedate the exposed nurse, but the potency of the pheromones in the room was strong enough to sway her mind immediately. Grabbing a scalpel, she sliced open the suit of a doctor coming towards her before the changes overtook her. Falling forward, she ripped her way out of her suit, leaving it behind her like a discarded cocoon. The small shorts and t-shirt she had on beneath ripped at the seams as her body changed from a mousy young lady into a buxom sex goddess.

The four remaining humans in the room prepared to fend off any attack, but the sight of the moist, quivering goddess was too much for one of the doctors. Willingly, he took off his own helmet and breathed in deeply. Before the others could react, he set upon them with a new ferocity, pulling and clawing at their protective garments until all of them had been exposed.

The Cabinet watched with grim fascination as these men and women slowly morphed into the corrupted creatures that now plagued the world. The transformed nurse wasted no time in moving over to the volunteering doctor, dropping on her hands and knees and fishing out his cock. A frenzy of lust overwhelmed the changing man as he shoved his cock down the throat of the young girl, her tits wobbling back and forth as he fucked her mouth. The poison in his veins continued to work, doubling muscle and lengthening bone, turning him into a gargantuan monstrosity. As his changes completed, he pulled his now nine inch cock free of the wanton slut's mouth and sprayed his load all over her. Immediately, she crawled over to the next available cock, stuffing it inside of her eager cunt.

The Alpha flexed his new muscles and turned his attention to the gurney. He took a grip of the chains and pulled. The links broke apart like they were made of paper. The First Lady spread her arms to break apart the leather straps that held her.

"Oh, Sarah," came a voice on the video from behind the camera. The President stepped into frame and up to the glass.

Sarah freed herself from all remaining bonds and clothing, stepping onto the operating room floor completely naked. Her once fifty year old body had become a lithe twenty two. Her small breasts had grown to obscene proportions and her ass obscenely wobbled up and down, taunting all the men watching. Even separated by time and space, the effect of watching a Queen was distinct. Every man in the room nervously hid an erection as they watched the former First Lady grab hold of the Alpha's throbbing member and pull him over to her. With her face toward the camera, she got on her hands and knees, guiding the Alpha behind her. Luridly, she stuck her ass up in the air as her massive tits squashed on the ground before her. With an eager grin, the Alpha pushed inside of her and began fucking the President's transformed wife as he watched.

The Queen seemed to know she had an audience. The other rutting couples in the room positioned themselves for the benefit of the camera. Soon, cum was blasting into the corrupt pussies as the manhood of the lesser beings in the room faded away. The male doctors were already sporting B cups and long blonde hair by the time the Alpha's first load coated the inside of the First Lady. Satisfied with the performance of her new mate, Sarah stood up and walked towards the window, the monster's cum dribbling down her thighs. She looked directly at the camera, raised a fist, and slammed it into the glass with a loud bang.

Immediately, the President was swept out of frame. The Alpha moved over to the window and smashed his muscled bulk into it, causing splinters to appear in the glass. The video shut off.

The Chief of Staff stood up, "And that is what we're fighting against. Let's get to work."

***

The RV rattled to a stop. With a wheeze, the engine shut off. "That's it," Phillip said.

Anna walked into the driver's cabin and sat down in the passenger's seat. "Where's the next gas station?"

Phillip pulled out an old road map. "God, what I wouldn't give for an Internet connection. Takes fifteen minutes to figure out where the fuck you are on this thing."

Anna looked up at the sky. "It'll be dark soon."

Phillip slammed the map down. "Fuck. Well, we knew this would happen eventually. We can stay here for tonight and head out on foot in the morning. I don't think we should stay on the road though. You saw those cars a few miles back."

"What about the house?" Anna said, quietly.

Phillip sighed, "We talked about this."

"Yes, and I think we should talk about it again," she insisted.

"How often has a sign that says 'safe haven' been a good thing during the apocalypse? Whoever is at that place has probably been waiting for the world to go to shit so they could start chaining people up in their basement and eating them one piece at a time."

"Look at our other options," Anna said. "We're stuck in the middle of nowhere. We have no food and very little water. The road isn't safe. The woods aren't safe. No matter what we do or where we go, we're going to be in danger. At this point, it's no worse to walk into it open armed. Maybe they're not murderers or thieves or whatever. Maybe it's just normal people who saw the world going to hell and tried to help."

"Did you see other people? If it's so safe there why weren't people waving us in with big smiles on their faces? Why did it look like the Bates Hotel sitting in the middle of an overgrown field."

Anna crossed her arms. "I don't know. But I think we should go find out. We check, if it seems wrong, we leave. No harm. What else is there to do? It could be another fifty miles before anything else, and we won't make it that far."

Phillip thought for a moment. He slowly folded the map and watched the road in front of him for any signs of life. "Ok, fine. We'll try. Get your gear. Only the necessities. If it turns out to be safe, we can come back for some of the other supplies."

—

By the time they reached the farmhouse, the sun had set. A large pale moon guided them through the fields leading towards the black silhouette of the house. Both of them were hyper aware of every snapping twig and every odd flutter of wind. When the house was a hundred yards away, Phillip stopped and crouched down into the tall grass. Anna moved to speak, but he held a finger up to her lips and pointed toward the house.

A bit apart from the house was a barn. From that structure a person emerged carrying a lantern. The two travelers watched the light and the shadow carrying it cross the yard. The figure moved with a labored gait. The light entered the house and vanished. Phillip thought it odd for a moment that the light should so quickly disappear behind what should be windows, but then he saw small slivers of light, barely noticeable. The occupants had blacked out the windows in some fashion. He couldn't decide if this was a good sign or not.

Anna shuffled restlessly beside him. They met each other's gaze, and she held out her hands to mime "well?!"

He gestured for her to follow and moved parallel to the house towards a fence that jutted up against a copse of trees. "Here," he whispered, climbing into the middle of wooded area. "This was probably for cattle to have shade. It'll keep us out of sight at least."

"Ok, fine," Anna said, grimacing slightly as she sunk down onto the hard soil. "Now what?"

"Now we wait until morning," Phillip said. "Whoever that was will be less dangerous in the daylight than in the dark. They've blacked out the windows, so they know people are out roaming, and they probably don't want people barging in at night. Here, take this blanket. Get some sleep if you can, I'll keep watch."

Anna rolled her eyes. She thought he was being overly cautious. They had only heard stories of the horrible things happening, but they hadn't seen anything. Suspicion and paranoia were the driving forces in the world since the outbreak. One of the trees had a gnarled root that more or less worked as a cradle. She placed the blanket over the area and settled in with her pack as a pillow. For a long while she watched the dark shadow of her boyfriend as he scanned the field for any sign of movement. She worried about the forest behind them, but her worries turned into restless dreams.

—

Phillip fell asleep. He didn't realize how tired he had been and by the time he noticed the waves of sleep creeping over him, it was too late to stop it. A low coughing noise woke him up. Instantly, all the aches and pains of the previous day's walk and a night sleeping while sitting up came rushing back to him. His eyes fluttered open to see a woman standing about ten yards away from him with a shotgun pointed at his head. He quickly grabbed Anna's foot and shook, causing her to stir slowly from slumber.

"Who are you and what do you want?" the woman asked. She was in her fifties and wore soiled blue jeans and an old flannel shirt. Her eyes were covered by sunglasses and a wide brimmed hat, but Phillip doubted that would greatly affect her accuracy with the gun.

He cleared his throat, "We saw your sign."

"Then why are you slinking around by a tree next to my property?" she growled.

"We didn't want to disturb you at night. We thought it might alarm you.." he said, feeling quite foolish.

The woman didn't waver at all. "Do have any weapons? Don't lie to me, I'll know."

Phillip shook his head, "Just...just knives."

"Stand up," she ordered. Anna followed Phillip's lead as he stood and moved out of the trees. They dropped their knives on the ground and stood while keeping their hands up. "Got names?" the woman asked.

"My name is Phillip. This is my girlfriend Anna. We were traveling in an RV, but we ran out of gas."

The woman held up her hand, "Don't answer questions that weren't asked." For a long time, she held them at gunpoint while they stared back at her, trying to read some expression behind the glasses. Finally, she lowered the gun. "My name is Elaine. Come on with me. But remember, I've been using this exact shotgun since I was nine years old. No funny business. Grab your gear."

Phillip and Anna let out long sighs of relief. Finally something was going their way. They all remained silent as they went up to the farmhouse and went inside. Elaine led them into the kitchen and ordered them to sit down at the table. A wonderful smell permeated the room as they took their seats. Elaine kept her eye on them as she placed the gun down in a corner and set about working in the kitchen.

"You two are the first I've seen in weeks," she said. "Don't know what I expected being out here all alone, but it was starting to wear on me. Like I was the only soul left on the earth. Here, eat." She put down two plates of hot biscuits and fried pork chops. "Glad to have company. Been having to cook everything in the freezer since the power went down. Don't even have a dog to feed it to."

It was the first hot food they'd had in days. Phillip voraciously started clearing his plate. Anna smiled politely at Elaine as she attempted to eat like a civilized person. "So you haven't had any other visitors?"

Elaine snorted, "Not since the radio went out. Early on, neighbors were making the rounds to check on people. Back when it was all rumors and hearsay. More and more though, people stopped. Said it wasn't safe. Then it was cause of the gas problem. Nearest neighbor is twenty miles away. No way of getting there without a car. Ed Mason had a horse or two, but we haven't seen him at all."